What do you think about Andrea Yates? Insane? Not?

Question

She testified to her 7 year old begging and pleading and fighting against her as she drowned him.

How could it come to this?

I just dont understand how she could wake up one morning, see her husband off to work, and then say to herself... 'i think i'll drown our five kids' and then kill one after another. Even when theyre begging and pleading. They were all laying there, each child saw the previous ones. And then she called her husband and told him to come home because there was an emergency.

How could she be insane just long enough to kill each screaming pleading child, and then snap out AFTER theyre all dead and call her husand out of remorse?

I cant even comprehend that.

Also, what makes this different from any other person who kills five siblings?

If a stranger came along and killed all of them... was it a moment of insanity.. or only if its the mother, and how do you draw that line?

Do they say its insanity because she loved them and is remorseful and regretful?

What about if joe blow killed them, and was miserable and sorry after? is that insanity?

Answer 1

If you guys did any extensive reading on her case, you'd realize she's "nuts." Not because she did something we all find heinous and evil, but because she's actually suffering from mental disorders.

(Has anyone here actually had to deal with someone with real mental problems, that need medical treatment?)

While she was a "good mother" for a very long time, she always was near the snapping point. In earlier years, her husband and she got involved with some fringe fundamentalist groups that beat weird ideas into her head -- the sort of "rigid morality" type where everything is wrong, everyone's an evil person, and so forth.

(This sort of crap is the the reasoning that got fed into her eventual psychosis -- everyone is going to hell, the only way to save her kids was to kill them before they were accountable, and so forth.)

Andrea is not a rugged individualist by nature in the least. She is the sort of person who automatically respects authority and looks outside herself for answers. She was very susceptible to this sort of social conditioning, and it already stressed her weakened personality.

She was also suffering severe psychotic rifts from reality. She had been hospitalized for depression and other issues a few times, I believe she actually tried to kill herself at different times in the past, and she was supposed to be on HEAVY medication.

When she was sane, people thought she was the best mom they had ever seen (and I do not doubt that). When she was off her meds, people got really worried because her behavior was so off-kilter.

Unfortunately, she ended up going to a doctor who decided the medication wasn't necessary and she was removed from it shortly before she murdered her children.

Her husband was actually afraid she WOULD hurt the children... but he did nothing about it. Rusty kept going to work, he didn't find someone to watch her consistently, and so forth. He did not provide his wife with the emotional and relational support she needed to function in a sane manner but instead placed undue burden upon her, kept having children despite being advised not to (I think) due to the extra energy needed from Andrea, and so forth.

Still, the big thing is her HISTORY of mental illness, and the fact she was taken off meds, resulting in a complete break from reality.

Killing five children is obviously and disgustingly wrong (as a parent, what else could I say?); but when I read about the case, it's obvious the woman was not a psychopathic personality but a mentally imbalanced one, and NO ONE did anything to help her.

As soon as she got back on her meds, she obviously wanted her kids back alive and was guilt-stricken over having done what she did.

Treating Andrea like human garbage would just be one more inhumanity thrown on top of this whole awful mess.

Maybe she can never be let out of jail, simply due to the notoriety of what she did, but she should at least be treated for her mental illness and given productive things to do in a controlled environment. I am quite sure, when sane, she can contribute something.

It's just a terrible tragedy in which Andrea did the deed and thus is "guilty" but the doctors, husband, religious cult, and others were complicit and got away scott-free.

The difference to me: If someone is a healthy productive member of society when on normal medication and does something heinous when taken off the meds... obviously a medical condition is the culprit, rather than a malevolent attitude.

---

BTW: They're having a retrial now because Park Dietz, a forensic psychologist, testified falsely that a certain TV show had an episode like this in it, and insinuated that Andrea saw it and devised this "plan" to get rid of her kids.

He was wrong. There never was such a show that aired. So there was no connection to her supposedly "masterminding" this murder. But the jury did not know that, and it helped lead to her conviction.

Because the testimony on this large issue was false, the outcome of the trial was in doubt. Hence, the retrial.

Answer 2

I for one can't even see how an insane person could do this to their children. Although how could a sane person do that either. She must have been insane to a certain degree. I have three children and could never do anything to hurt them. They are what keep me going. Basically sometimes they are what keep me sane. I have suffered from depression and no matter how bad things were never thought of hurting them. If anything why didn't she hurt herself. Instead of killing her children why didn't she kill herself? Not saying that is the answer, but sure would have been better than killing her children. I do think she was insane but don't think she should get off because of insanity. There has to be sever consequences for what she did. It sickens me to even think about what those children went through that morning. To think how scared they must have been. A child looks to their mother as a protector. The one person they loved and trusted so much took their life. I hope she lives everyday thinking about what she did.

Answer 3

I would think that even an insane person would snap out of their insane moment after drowning the first child, but to continue to drown child after child even when they are kicking and pleading is just an evil person. Unless she has been insane all her life, I don't thing that a "moment" of insanity would cause one to take ALL the time it took to drown five of ones OWN children. She should be severely punished.

Answer 4

She should not be able to plead insanity and get a lesser punishment. Killing her children was just plain wrong, and I don't see how anyone could do that to their own child. She needs to be kept in prison for the rest of her life.

Answer 5

I know there really is a post partum depression and it varies from person to person. I personally think there was a mental illness there and the depression threw her over the edge. I find it hard to believe that ANYONE in their "right mind" would commit such a crime. I just can't imagine it.

Answer 6

It is times like this I wish there was real justice in the world. The only people worse that her are pedophiles.


Insane yes
Criminal yes
victim the kids not her

Answer 7

I think she is just trying to get off the hook. You can understand that she was suffering depression but, she killed her five children. C'mon she could have seeked help, but she didn't want to.

Answer 8

I think she was insane, because a sane person would not do such a thing to their own children.

Answer 9

Insane in the membrane.

Answer 10

How could she NOT be insane? How could you do this. I don't think she can ever be trusted again though. Institution forever.